Rhodes frowned. Something about the mist felt wrong. "It's not that simple," he said. "Gray, try freezing it."
Gray pressed his hands together. A burst of frigid air exploded outward, instantly crystallizing the surrounding fog into fine ice dust that fluttered down like snowflakes.
The air cleared at once, revealing the mountain's dark slopes and tangled roots.
But just as quickly, the falling ice crystals stopped descending. They began to rise again, glittering as they floated upward, melting midair into tiny droplets that dispersed once more into thick fog.
"That seems familiar," Erza murmured, narrowing her eyes. "This might not be ordinary fog magic at all, it's probably Time Magic."
"Time?" Gray echoed, his face tightening as he immediately thought of Ultear.
Erza nodded grimly. "When Rhodes blew the fog away, time simply rewound and returned it to its original state. When Gray froze it, time reversed the freezing. The fog isn't being created, it's being reset."
Those who could manipulate both Time and Space Magic were always the worst kind of enemy.
"Water!" Carla suddenly shouted, panic flashing in her voice. "A flood's coming!"
She spread her wings and shot into the air, instinctively wanting to grab Wendy and carry her to safety. But Wendy was still healing the injured, and the others hadn't moved. Carla hesitated. She wasn't the same as before, she couldn't abandon the rest just to save one person.
The decision cost her a second.
From the mountain's peak came a deep, thunderous roar.
An instant later, a massive wall of water came crashing down. The flood thundered toward them, carrying rocks, mud, uprooted trees, and boulders, swallowing everything in its path.
"Freeze it!"
Gray shouted. He trusted Carla's instincts without question and had already begun casting before the wave reached them.
A surge of invisible frost swept forward, colliding with the incoming torrent. In an instant, nearly a hundred meters of water solidified into a frozen wall, an enormous cresting wave suspended midair like a sculpture of translucent blue crystal.
The flood stopped short, frozen solid barely twenty meters from where they stood.
But the crisis wasn't over.
More water poured down the mountain, crashing against the frozen barrier. As Gray froze the new torrents, the ice wall continued to grow upward, higher and thicker, until it resembled an unstable glacier towering over them.
Sweat streamed down Gray's temples. He could freeze a small hill in an instant, or turn a river into solid ice, but this was different. The water from the mountain above was endless, heavier and faster than anything he'd ever faced.
Even Juvia, he thought bitterly, couldn't control something of this magnitude.
He gritted his teeth. "Hey! Somebody think of something fast!"
Before anyone could respond, another rumble came from the opposite slope. Water was now pouring down both sides of the mountain, and even the ground beneath them began to seep.
"Ocean Dragon!" Rhodes reacted immediately. A massive blue-scaled dragon appeared with a splash of mist, lowering itself to carry the wounded to safety. Wendy climbed aboard with them to continue treatment midair.
Rhodes turned to call for assistance, but before he could speak, one of the keys on Lucy's belt began to glow with radiant gold.
A whirl of light burst beside her, and a mermaid with flowing blue hair and a gleaming sapphire tail appeared, holding a silver amphora.
"Aquarius," Lucy called.
Aquarius lifted her amphora high. Though called a water jug, the vessel was more like an ancient silver-gray urn, the source of her power.
At once, the floods cascading down the opposite mountainside were drawn upward, as if seized by a mighty invisible force. Streams of water rose into the sky, twisting and converging before being sucked into the amphora's mouth.
The roaring floods stilled.
Even the immense wave of ice before them ceased to grow. The water trapped above the frozen section thawed midair, spiraling upward in glittering ribbons before vanishing into the same amphora.
The small bottle seemed bottomless, continuously absorbing the water flowing down from both directions.
"Aquarius? You came out before I even summoned you! That's rare!"
Unlike the times when Loke or Virgo appeared on their own and she would scold them, Lucy actually looked delighted to see Aquarius arrive uninvited.
Aquarius gave her a disdainful look. "Idiot, is this really the time to be saying such things?"
Lucy was used to the mermaid's sharp tongue, but her eyes widened as something clicked. "Oh, right! Did Loke deliver the message to the Celestial Spirit King?"
"Not yet," Aquarius replied curtly. "The Celestial Spirit King only just learned about the abnormal deaths of so many Celestial Spirit Mages. He's already summoning all of the Star Spirits."
"The Star Spirit of Aquarius?" The Ocean Dragon tilted her head, eyeing the mermaid curiously. "I thought it would just be a bottle, but it's actually a mermaid, hahaha..."
The Dragon suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. "A bottle! So the bottle's the real body, hahaha!"
"Who's that?!" Aquarius snapped, spinning toward the voice. Her fierce gaze met the sight of a giant dragon, shoulders shaking as she laughed so hard she nearly rolled over.
Even while laughing, the Dragon was still performing healing magic on the wounded she carried. The magic flowing from her body was so strong that the air around her shimmered faintly.
Aquarius froze mid-glare, her confident expression replaced with visible confusion. She looked down at Lucy. "Why is there a dragon here?"
"Mr. Rhodes summoned her!" Lucy replied matter-of-factly. "Haven't I told you about my companions and their magic? You didn't just ignore me again, did you? Mr. Rhodes is really strong."
"Hmph." Aquarius turned away, her tone dripping with forced scorn to hide her guilt. "Do I have to remember every little thing you say?"
The truth was, when Lucy was a child, she had a habit of summoning Aquarius at the most ridiculous times, inside the bathroom, beside the fish tank, even into puddles, just to talk about trivial things. Aquarius had grown completely fed up.
But she couldn't stay angry for long. The girl was Layla's daughter, after all. Out of affection for Layla, Aquarius had developed a "skill" of tuning out half of Lucy's chatter so she could accompany her without losing her temper.
For Star Spirits, Lucy's growing up had only taken a blink of time, one or two months by their measure, so Aquarius's habit never really disappeared. She still tended to let Lucy's words go in one ear and out the other.
Now, faced with this awkward situation, she tried to keep her composure.
Lucy wasn't about to let her off easily. With a sly smile, she said, "So you didn't hear me when I told you that Mr. Rhodes is a master of romance, did you?"
"What?!" Aquarius's composure shattered instantly. The hand holding her amphora trembled.
"Bottle! Bottle!" Lucy yelped. "Careful not to drop it!"
"Shut up!" Aquarius snapped, steadying her grip. "What do you mean, a master of romance?!"
The strongest of the Zodiac when near water, Aquarius nonetheless carried one eternal frustration, her rocky relationship with Scorpio.
Their romance was neither broken nor stable, forever stuck in that irritating middle ground. To make matters worse, she occasionally caught Scorpio out shopping with other women, pretending it was all "nothing serious."
To preserve her pride, she had to play the part of the calm, composed girlfriend, never daring to ask too much or lose her temper.
So when Lucy mentioned a "master of romance," Aquarius's heart skipped.
Lucy, thrilled to finally have the upper hand in a conversation with her prickly Spirit, puffed out her chest. "Didn't I tell you? Mr. Rhodes, he.."
Rhodes tapped Lucy lightly on the head, interrupting her mid-sentence. "Are you two seriously chatting right now?" he said, exasperated. "We're being attacked, in case you forgot. Maybe show a little respect to the enemy?"
Truly, what kind of master and what kind of Star Spirit were these two?
Lucy was scatterbrained as always, and Aquarius, the proud Water Bearer, was no better.